


I wear my sunglasses at night

by Periphyton



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Character Study, I stayed home from work with the head cold from hell and decided to write this, Other, The Velveteen Rabbit is a documentory, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-10 23:46:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20143987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Periphyton/pseuds/Periphyton
Summary: The Bentley isn't the only inanimate object Crowley has a relationship with.





	I wear my sunglasses at night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amdg2846](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amdg2846/gifts).

> A quick look at our favorite demon, from a unique POV. This was inspired in a very round about way by the series The Land of the Living by amdg2846. Everybody enjoy my little bit of musing, then go read that amazing series.

It is a well observed phenomenon that humans can use inanimate objects to the point where they become Real. This is most common among children, as demonstrated in the documentary The Velveteen Rabbit, but it can happen any time there is a sufficient connection. A computer that saves it’s students work, the car that protects its driver in a crash. Pots and pans that prevent food from burning after decades of use, and that favorite teapot who never fails to provide calm. 

This practice is even more pronounced when it occurs with supernatural entities that have actual divine or demonic magic. Many of Aziraphale’s books have resisted mold, decay, and the slow breakdown of glue, paper, and ink long past the point they should have gently transformed into dust. Not because he directly blessed them with any deliberate intention but simply because they knew how much he loved them. Likewise a certain vintage car ran on empty for years out of love, and in the end refused to become inconveniently discorporated out of sheer spite to protect the blazing spirit it had transported and protected since the first time it rolled off the showroom. 

But how does this phenomena relate to not one object, but many? Crowley had worn shaded glasses in every era that had anything close to the craftsmanship available to create them, and occasionally nudged the process along. No one particular pair stood out after that first one, but it was enough to set the precedent. After all, form shapes nature. The repeated form of glass and frames carried with it the nature it created from one corporation to the next, so to speak. 

Thus it was that from the very first set of cut gemstones and wire back in Rome that Crowleys glasses had always been Real. They stood between him and the human world, allowing him to move through it without unwanted notice. They made him a part of the world – he could always use magic glamour to blur the snake details of his eyes but after too long that left him feeling like nobody could see him at all. It was bad enough in those long-ago early centuries when death was still new to realize that no human connection could last more than a handful of decades at the most. But as centuries turned into millennia and one human life blurred into the next the sense of existing without truly being known became just another aspect of demonic existence on Earth. 

With his glasses, at least he could be seen. They protected him even as they anchored him in the world, existing in it without hiding behind illusions. Then they became a mark of style, of an identity independent from either heaven or hell. Wearing dark glasses at all times became part of who Crowley choose to be, a projected image that protected him from humans reactions even as it shielded his eyes from betraying emotion to anyone in general, and to one angel in particular. 

So even while the demons relationship with his car became a thing of legend, there was a smaller, more intimate relationship going on right in front of everyone’s eyes – literally. Crowley’s glasses always protected him no matter what pair he wore. They never slid off when he needed them to stay on, and they usually managed to come back to him when any individual pair got misplaced. They never fogged up on him, or got dirty, the lenses never cracked and the frames never bent – a feat even more impressive when they were made of cut smoky quartz and hand drawn wire. Only at the angels bookshop did they relax with the inanimate understanding that their demon was safe from any prying eyes. 

They may not have been as flashy as the Bentley, but they were Real, they had been there earlier, and they loved him just as much.


End file.
